When European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano commanded the International Space Station in 2019, Christina Koch was his flight engineer. The two spent six months together in orbit before returning to Earth on the same Soyuz spacecraft. Now Koch is preparing to fly to the Moon, and Parmitano says the mission she is about to undertake will change everything.
Issued on: 18/03/2026 – 16:00Modified: 18/03/2026 – 16:01
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Koch will fly alongside NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman and Victor Glover, and Canadian Space gency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, on a free-return trajectory around the Moon and back to Earth on a 10-day mission. The crew will not land on the lunar surface. The mission is a crewed flyby, designed to demonstrate that the systems needed for deep space travel are ready for what comes next.
Artemis II is the first crewed deep space mission since Apollo 17 in 1972, and the first since then to reach the Moon’s vicinity. It will be the first crewed flight of the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft around the Moon, with the goal of verifying modern human capabilities in deep space and paving the way for long-term exploration and science on the lunar surface.
The mission also carries historic significance beyond the science. Glover will become the first person of colour, Koch the first woman, and Hansen the first non-American citizen to reach deep space and the Moon’s vicinity.
A different architecture, a different ambition
Parmitano has described Artemis II as the beginning of a new era for the exploration community. He argues that the Artemis programme represents a fundamental departure from the Apollo model. “It is designed to be a sustainable and sustained series of operations that will put humanity back on the surface of the Moon but at the same time, in a way that we can do more exploration,” he said. “We can really explore the surface of the Moon, especially the poles, where we expect there to be water.”
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Parmitano also underlined the broader international dimension of the programme, noting that with Artemis II the exploration of the Moon will be multilateral and more integrated than anything that came before it.
That ambition is embedded in the mission design. Artemis II is a test flight whose primary objective is to demonstrate key systems that would be needed for a crewed mission to land on the Moon, including the Space Launch System rocket, the Orion capsule, deep-space life support and environmental controls, the crew capsule’s heat shield, and communications capabilities.
A road to the launch pad
The path to launch has not been straightforward. The flight was scheduled for February, then March, but was delayed on both occasions. During a fuelling test on 2 February, engineers detected a liquid hydrogen leak at the base of the rocket, forcing NASA to postpone the mission. On 21 February, a new issue emerged: an interruption in helium flow to the rocket’s upper stage.
NASA rolled the Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft to the Vehicle Assembly Building on 25 February for repairs ahead of the next launch opportunities. On 12 March 2026, NASA confirmed that testing of the Artemis II spacecraft was complete and that it was ready to return to the launch pad The mission is now targeting launch in April 2026.
The next steps
NASA has announced it is increasing the cadence of missions under the Artemis programme, adding a further mission in 2027 and targeting at least one surface landing every year thereafter. NASA Artemis II is the first step in that sequence. The crew will not set foot on the Moon. But if the mission succeeds, the people who do will have them to thank for it.